FIGHTING THE INSECTS 



Ward, the botanist of Cambridge University, exclaimed with 

 anxiety, "Did you encounter the avalanche?" 

 "Yes," said Fernow; "I was it." 



A good many interesting and important things were done in 

 entomology during the period we have been considering. We 

 have pointed out that large agricultural crops — in fact, agri- 

 cultural industries — have been saved from probable extinction 

 by certain pests, by the introduction of parasitic and predatory 

 insects. But beneficial insects have been used in other ways. It 

 was during my time that the production of clover seed was 

 made possible in New Zealand by the introduction of the 

 Humble Bee from England. Another instance of this general 

 nature in which I had a very strong interest occurred just at the 

 end of the last century. 



The Smyrna fig of commerce is a very superior article. It 

 contains an enormous number of small seeds which are said 

 to give it a medicinal quality. Californians, who were growing 

 another kind of fig, were not satisfied with it. Out there they 

 are always trying to do something bigger and better than other 

 people. So for a number of years they grew the Smyrna fig tree. 

 But as the so-called fruit is nothing but a large flower receptacle, 

 they had no results. Then it became known that there was a 

 fruit called the Capri fig which bore only male flowers, and that 

 it was necessary to have the Capri figs near the Smyrna figs in 

 order to secure fertilization. So Capri figs were introduced and 

 planted in several places, among them National City near San 

 Diego; Niles, not far from San Francisco; and Fresno, in the 

 San Joaquin Valley, where a young man named George C. 

 Roeding planted about six hundred of them. When these trees 

 grew up and blossomed, he introduced pollen into the Smyrna 

 figs by using a quill. In this way, he succeeded in fertilizing 



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